People Are Mercilessly Mocking PETA For Its Tweet About The Dangers Of ‘Anti-Animal Language’

Kim Wong-Shing is a staff writer at LittleThings. Her work spans beauty, wellness, pop culture, identity, food, and other topics. She is a contributing writer at NaturallyCurly, and her work has also appeared in HelloGiggles, Lifehacker, Wear Your Voice Magazine, and other outlets. She grew up in Philadelphia, attended Brown University, and is now based in New Orleans.

Do you ever use the phrase “bring home the bacon?” If so, the lovely folks at PETA would like to have a word with you.

PETA just released a statement on Twitter about “anti-animal language,” which it claims is comparable to “racist, homophobic, or ableist language.” As it turns out, there are plenty of phrases in English that casually talk about violence against animals. “Beat a dead horse,” for example. “Take the bull by the horns.”

And apparently, PETA wants people to do away with those phrases.

The organization suggested a list of (hilarious) alternative phrases to use instead. So rather than “bringing home the bacon,” we’re supposed to now say “bringing home the bagels.” Got it?

“Phrases that trivialize cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are,” PETA wrote.

Sorry, but it’s not gonna happen — or so says pretty much everyone on social media. People are mocking PETA with jokes, GIFs, and unapologetically anti-animal phrases.

“Obviously there is more than one way to skin a cat, so I think we can try new phrases,” one user joked.

What followed was a list of anti-animal terms along with suggested alternatives. The list is… interesting, to say the least. It includes phrases like “kill two birds with one stone,” which we should apparently replace with “feed two birds with one scone.”

“Just as it became unacceptable to use racist, homophobic, or ableist language, phrases that trivialize cruelty to animals will vanish as more people begin to appreciate animals for who they are and start ‘bringing home the bagels’ instead of the bacon,” the organization wrote.

And just to make it really clear that PETA is willing to die on this hill, the organization changed its Twitter name to “PETA: Bringing Home the Bagels Since 1980.”